AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“They abandoned me,” I whisper. “Why didn’t they want me?”
“Poorly Halflings are …” he pauses, seeming to think better of the words he planned on using, “troublesome,” he finishes. “They require more care, and even with that, their survival is not guaranteed. Better to trade it for a healthy human to raise within the household.”
I think of the boy in the markets—the one who smiled at me.
I fall into silence for a long while. Turning my cheek to him, I face where I sense the sea shore is—far ahead, buried in the darkness.
Eventually, Daein’s soft voice comes out, “Do you need more time?”
It takes a few seconds for my mind to register his question. I blink once, twice, then turn to face him.
It takes the shattering of darkness for me to see it all in a new light.
I can get things from him. He offers me soaps and perfumes and fabrics, but I draw much more from him than those trivial gifts. This is the moment that I can pull out some of his mismanaged compassion.
“I need you to free her,” I whisper. “Give her the freedom I’ll never have.”
He simply blinks at me.
Without speaking her name, he knows who I am talking about.
He cuts his gaze down to the swell of my belly, protruding more by the way I sit, legs tucked to the side of my thighs.
“I will grant you this, April.”
I look down at the disturbed soil, ruined by my nervous grip. I loosen my fist and let dirt and grass rain down, back into its natural place.
“Thank you,” I whisper. Without looking at him, I add, “Daein … I know what the kiss means.”
His stare sears into my cheek, like ice burns. After a pause, he says, “And so you know.” He doesn’t sound displeased or pleased. He merely states it.
I force a grim smile and look up at him with sad eyes. “You love me. In your own way—a way I never imagined for myself, or ever wanted. But you do, don’t you?”
He is unflinching. “Yes.”
“But you don’t want me to be happy… I have to beg for these things, these things to make me happy, and you will keep me here forever as your whore.”
“You misunderstand,” he says with a soft sigh. “I can never make you happy, April. It isn’t that I do not want this for you, it is that it’s not within my power. You must make peace with your life within yourself.”
“Won’t you at least try?” I ask, looking up at him, and only just realising that my eyes are cloudy. Something about all of this, the light maybe, the darkness, the contrast, the confessions—it’s all ripping me open.
“My evate,” he murmurs. “You are my all and everything. That is what it means to be one’s evate. I would fall on a sword to save you. I would fight and destroy an entire army for you. But I cannot deny my duties. I am bound to my princeship.”
“Your duties mean I have to be your whore and the mother of your bastard?”
“You can never be more than that. Not officially,” he adds. “But there is no higher rank than evate, April. Allow that knowledge to fill you with some joy. I will never love anything or anyone as I do you.”
With a sigh, I fall onto my back and stare up into the direct sun. I let it blind me, destroy me. Take me away.
“How long can I stay here?” I murmur, sleepy and teary-eyed.
His voice slips out from the darkness, “Until you wish to leave.”
What if I never want to leave?
6
I am lost in thoughts when she does it—Terry splashes a wave of lakewater all over my sopping wet face.
